Step 5: Arc of Change

Here’s what you’ve accomplished towards your project so far. You:

• Set a goal + are being held accountable

• Reserved your writing time

• Assembled your resources

• Connected with your “why”

• Identified your point

• Envisioned your ideal reader

• Brainstormed a title

• Identified your genre/category

• Assembled your comps

• Drafted your jacket copy

If you haven’t done these things yet, you can always catch up by following the links!

Happy #Preptober! This month you’ll see all the NaNoWriMo prep kicking into high gear. Less than a month until go time! 

This week, let’s talk about change. A book is not just a bunch of things that happen. A book contains the story of a transformation. In fiction, the transformation happens for the protagonist. In nonfiction, the transformation happens for the reader. If there is no change in the protagonist or for the reader, the book feels flat.

What changes for your protagonist or your reader from the beginning of the story to the end of the story?

Remember when we talked about the point you are making with your project and who it is for? In nonfiction, your reader is looking for a solution to a problem. So they are starting from that moment when they think/feel/know they have a problem: for example, in We Should All be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers, a reader wants to be a millionaire (or a lot closer to one) but doesn’t know how to get there, and there are obstacles in the way they don’t know how to overcome. By the end of the book, they will have strategies and tactics for achieving their goal. 

In fiction, the same is true for the protagonist: they have a want, a need, or a goal, and they struggle to get it. In Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, a global extinction event threatens Earth. Will humanity survive? It’s up to one man. There are many obstacles on the path to success, and success may come at a steep price. 

So where does your story start, exactly? At what moment does your protagonist’s want/need/goal present itself? At what moment does your reader’s want/need/goal show up?

Where will it end, exactly? What will your ideal reader be able to do/think/feel by the end of the journey? What will your protagonist know/have/feel/have to do by the end of the journey? Have you made the point you identified a couple of weeks ago?

These are the bookends of the arc of change. These tell you where your project starts and where it ends up. Next, we’ll connect those two bookends with internal and external movement.